Happy Christmas Eve eve! Today I am pleased to report that I did not knit a single stitch, because yesterday I finished the giant knitting project of doom and wove in all the ends. It is now washed and folded neatly into a box, safe from prying kittens , ready to be wrapped and handed off to its intended recipient.

I’ve been looking forward to finishing the project because up to this point I have done next to no holiday baking at all. Okay, granted, last weekend I broke down and whipped up a batch of fudge, which I then foisted on all of my and Richard’s coworkers, but aside from that, nothing. However, I was tasked to bring gingerbread men to the family Christmas gathering, and I also have had a yen for some Russian teacakes, so this morning when I got up, I mixed up the dough for the teacakes and tossed that into the fridge to chill, and I spent a few hours doing all manner of non-knitting things, like cleaning the house and working my way through laundry, and reading books. And then this afternoon I made gingerbread men.

It has been a few years since I last made gingerbread men, so near as I can figure, I must have made a half batch the last few times. Because one batch makes a WHOLE LOT of gingerbread men. Richard had to run off to the store to buy raisins for the eyes (the only time of year where I ever voluntarily put raisins on food I intend to consume, even though any time I actually *eat* a gingerbread man, I first pluck off the horrid little raisins and feed them to someone else), and then as I rolled them out on the counter and put them on pans, he decorated them with raisin eyes and red hot noses. I might have felt bad about consuming several cookies still warm from the oven, except that we have two huge cans of cookies now, sitting on the counter, waiting to be foisted on our respective families, so it’s not like we’re in any danger of running low.

I realized this evening that we had forgotten to buy one last gift. So after we ate dinner, we both hopped in the car and headed off to the grocery store, since I knew we’d be able to find what we needed there, and then on the way home we wove our way slowly through the streets of the residential neighborhoods nearby, looking at Christmas lights. We obviously weren’t the only ones with this idea, as there were lots of other cars, all driving very slowly down the roads, and scores of people walking down the sidewalks to admire all the lights as well. There was nothing quite quite as spectacular as the crazy little neighborhood light display just down the road from where we live (and nothing quite as disturbing as this), but it was still bright and pretty and the fact that one house, in which they were obviously in the middle of doing some renovation, had actually hung lights on the portapotty sitting in the driveway, really just made it that much more fun.

‘Tis the season for

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